There was a clear sign of pain on his face. Despite of the sickness that was tormenting Kochański, he gave a premiere performance of the second violin concerto in the concert hall of Warsaw Philharmonic under the baton of Grzegorz Fitelberg. This premiere was also his last performance. He passed away in less than four months later in New York on January 12, 1934. For already hurting Szymanowski it was the second death of a close person in a short period of time after his brother Feliks died in December 1933. The American premiere was undertaken by Albert Spalding under the baton of Sergiusz Kusewicky. “Okropną mam ochotę pracować z Pawełkiem! Może się wyłoni jakaś nowa sonata — a bodaj nawet drugi koncert!”, wrote Szymamowski to Kochanski’s wife Zofia on March 9, 1932. Composer’s preferred violinist played the key role in Szymanowski’s works for the violin. Szymanowski sketched the whole concerto in less than four weeks which shows a truly fervent work and Kochański wrote the cadenza himself, just as he did for the first violin concerto. However, the final version of the instrumentation was only finished in September 1933. The reason for this was the preparation of the fourth symphony which had its premiere at the time when Szymanowski started to compose his second violin concerto. The concerto is one of Szymanowski’s last works.

 

My special thanks belongs to brothers Jan Hus Bursík Filius and Bronislav Bursík, my dear friends who in 2015 built the “Omayra” violin instrument which I play on this LP.

Milan Pala